From Prism Legal’s Strategic Legal Technology:

Last week the Times Online published Eversheds report looks at how ‘perfect storm’ will affect the legal profession (18 Mar 2010), which provided an advance look at “Law firm of the 21st century – The clients: revolution – An Eversheds report on the post-recession legal sector in 2010″. The report, due for general release on March 22, is a fascinating read – bad news for Big Law but good news for legal tech managers and outsourcers.

Eversheds bases its report on a survey of 130 general counsel and 80 law firm partners about the state and future of the legal market. The firm concludes that “the revolution has now arrived”. And it is not a good one for Big Law. Interestingly, Evershed’s research finds that the recession was not so much the driver of change as the catalyst for it. Driving the change are four secular trends:
• globalisation – the move to the East
• increasing professionalism and status of the General Counsel
• technology
• the Legal Services Act in the UK.

Strategic Legal Technology – Eversheds: “the revolution has now arrived”

From docNative Paradigm Blog:

I’ve been involved recently in three separate cases where backup tapes have been a major factor in some data recovery efforts.  And not a useful factor unfortunately, although more due to lack of a good inventory of some very old tapes than anything to do with the tapes themselves. Still we’ve been presented with some major issues when dealing with boxes of the normal tape rotation of daily, weekly and monthly and yearly. So I was quite pleased to see an article by Craig Ball in the most recent Law Technology news called ‘The Lowdown On BackUp Tapes’.

There are some great tips on working with backup tapes in the article (or, to use the technical term ‘Tape Tips’) but before I mention several that I think are particularly important, let me mention the biggest issue, which is not technical at all. It’s the people.

Here’s the typical exchange between an attorney (generally outside counsel) and an IT person at the clients shop:

Attorney: hey Charley, I’m looking for some emails and data from the Boise office that deals with that big fire they had out there in ‘98. Do you have anything that goes back that far?

IT:  Fire?

Attorney:  Yeah, remember the plant burned down in 98 and about 20 people got killed?

IT: Yeah, that kind of rings a bell. Not sure though, I was working in the Flummox Division IT back then.

Attorney:  Uh huh.  So nobody ever asked you to pull any documents for the litigation around the fire.

IT: Not me, no.  (Editors Note: remember this answer)

Attorney: OK, well, that’ s unfortunate but still I need to gather anything. Can you see if you have data gong back that far.

IT: It’s on backup tapes.

Attorney: Wow, that was fast. You don’t remember the fire but you know you have data on backup tapes?

IT: Everything is on backup tapes.

Attorney: OK, can you pull the Boise tapes for say 1997 and 1998 and give me an index of what’s on them?

IT: I don’t know where they are.

Attorney:  OK, you don’t keep all the tapes in one place?

IT: No each location keeps their own tapes and the Boise shop was sold off to Kumquat FAG in 03.

Attorney:  OK, well can you please check?

IT: Sure

Two weeks later

Attorney:  Charley, never heard back from you on those tapes. Any luck?

IT:  Yeah, we found some.

Attorney: UH, ok where are they?

IT: Here

Attorney: OK, can someone look at them?

IT: We don;t have the software for those tapes any more. I hade Master Blaster do an inventory of the labels.

Attorney: OK. Master Blaster. Is that a company you work with?

IT: No, that’s my night on-call IT guy.  He’s a big Mad MAx fan so, well  …  never mind.

Attorney:  OK, can you send me that inventory?

IT: Sure…

docNative Paradigm Blog – Backup Tapes: Friend or Foe?

• Wow.  I just received some major props from the Posse List on my ATL article about contract attorneys from last week.
• On something Ed had covered a few days ago, Rick Horowitz invites you to “Come to the Cut.”
• Chris Dale give his opinion on iCyte.
• Microsoft wants to be off in the cloud.
• EDiscovery Trends posts about the Toyota debacle, and here is this latest article about their secret “black box.”
• According to ValueNotes, LPOs are not where Indian law students want to go.
• And finally, should law reviews do more for law students by promoting blogging?

From The eDiscovery Paradigm Shift:

…I can’t remember having ever witnessed such an antagonistic atmosphere as the one that exists today in eDiscovery as technologists attempt to introduce new technology and lawyers desperately try to avoid the use of this new technology. I have been wrong a few times in the past about markets that are going through paradigm shifts and technology adoption lifecycles (e.g. voice recognition). However, I really don’t believe that there is an invasion of eDiscovery technologists from “deep space” or that anyone is trying to “snatch anyone’s body”.

As a long time student and follower of the technology adoption lifecyle as described in “Crossing the Chasm” by Geoffrey A. Moore, I am very well aware of the concepts of “early adopters”, “mainstream buyers” and “lagers”. And, as indicated by Mr. Moore, buyers and/or adopters fit into one of the technology adoption lifecycle categories and then move, into the next based upon a normal progression of events such as maturation of the technology, solid references, overwhelming evidence and facts like literally everyone else in the industry has moved (i.e. the very late lagers). The process is not unlike watching the migration of the wildebeests. However, is some very rare instances, this natural progression is dramatically accelerated due to factors that are very much beyond the control of the adopters. And, when this happens, the adopters are forced way outside their comfort zones and therefore have a tendency to act irrationally. It is my opinion that we are witnessing this phenomenon in eDiscovery.

The eDiscovery Paradigm Shift – e-Discovery Technology Adoption Lifecycle: Lawyers vs. Technologists

Great post from TechCrunch:

Last month, we broke the news about BarMax, the most expensive app in the App Store. At $999.99 (the highest price Apple allows you to sell an app for), the app differentiated itself from the joke $999.99 app in the past because it actually seemed like a solid deal. That is, it’s a solid deal when you compare it to its closest competitor, BarBri, a series of classes that help lawyers prepare for the bar exam. Don’t believe us? Just look at the moves BarBri is now taking to alter its offering just weeks after the launch of BarMax…

…by leveraging the wide reach of the App Store, it seems that BarMax has found a way around some of this anti-competitive behavior. And BarBri is clearly threatened. The company has begun circulating fliers on law school campuses proclaiming two new “enhancements” for the Summer 2010 classes…